Friday, October 29, 2010

Some of these shall go into our Humans and Totems exhibition which opens on Halloween.
I shall be painting more today. The gallery is looking great, and we are thinking about making it a more permanent thing... more about that later.

I'm also working on a new cat-related project, which means that I'm not very sociable down the pub these days. I just sit there and draw Siamese cats.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Oh I am miserable. Miserable! I hate having a cold. I despise this one particularly much.
It's the first cold since moving house, which means: somewhere not as yet set up for having a cold in. Or at least, I haven't worked out how to do it yet. I guess I could huddle up on the sofa and watch something from my housemate's DVD collection (lacking on of my own). I guess there IS lemsip. in fact, there is everything one could need. But I am miserable. Miserable, do you hear!
I have two books to work on every day, and two others that I really want to work on, and all I do is go "bwaaaaah" because I have a cold. A miserable cold, no less.
How is everything supposed to work? Four books! That's madness! Even two. That's madness when seen from inside a miserable cold.
It's such a miserable cold that I just had a cry because I miss my mother, who for some reason I do imagine would read me a book. Because it's the sort of cold that makes you five years old and dreaming a strange and persistent dream of a grown-up life with contracts and deadlines, which cannot be reality because the most impressive thing you can make, and could ever make, is a honking noise with your nose. It's the sort of cold that's like a place you come back to by mistake, like Blackfriars Station after the trains stop running. It is forever in all directions, including sideways.
Oh I am miserable.
I'll call my mother now.

Some days ago I went to the live recording of this album, and had a wonderful time. Matthew and his band played a mix of songs from his shows, including a couple of his lovely Flyboy songs. Some others had lyrics by me, and there was also a great one by Alexia, and it all ended in a beautiful choral performance of "God Blessed the Sheep" by the whole audience.
You can pre-order a copy here, if you like!

My To Do pinboard is now only HALF covered in scraps of pink paper. My old mac now runs Linux, but still likes to have a black screen for every sort of conceivable reason, including gravity and Tuesday.

Now I just need to add some numbers, book some tickets, write a boring story not about existential elephants, pick up some stuff from the old flat and buy drinks for Friday's launch do.

Looking for the day at the bottom of a double espresso. Or triple? How much can you get into one mug?

I wonder if I can reasonably do most of this in my pyjamas on the sofa while waiting for my fancy phone to be delivered.

What I really would LIKE to do is go out and raid some skips for boards to paint on. I spotted a good few when I cycled back from the studio yesterday evening...
I'm not 100% sure what to paint yet, but probably it will be a whole series of donkeys and maybe goats.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Getting Things Done Day. Again! I thought it was Tuesday or something. Is it?
I am attempting to get all boring paperwork out of the way by the simple means of starting on a new piece of paperwork once I finished one. This is a new idea for me, normally I'd go "Aaaah, well done, now a cup of tea and some drawing".
So... yes, that worked well for most of the day, but now I do need a break, and I allowed myself to start on setting up a studio computer. I got my old G4 12" aluminium PowerBook down from the shelf, and I wiped it because it's gone slow and melancholy. Right now Linux Ubuntu 10.4 is installing, and it's a good feeling - I know there are files disappearing right now that I never backed up, some old photos, bits of writing, emails... This computer has been with me for a long time, and one reason I stopped using it was actually that it felt like too much past was lurking on there, and I couldn't bring myself to sort through it all.
Now I decided that if after several years of never switching it on I never felt the lack of any of those files, I probably never will. And it's a shame that it's not being used, it is such a pretty computer... people keep wanting to buy it off me even though it has neither a webcam nor WiFi. Back when I bought it the ability to play DVDs was, you know, the cutting edge THING. Remember, back when only yuppies had mobiles. Mm.

Ubuntifying a mac. Like making a Hackintosh but really not.

Also: I just bought my very first smartphone, which should arrive tomorrow. I am planning to use it creatively. Let's see what happens. It's an android phone, so I should be able to tinker with it. I've missed tinkering with computers, a bit.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Today I painted the letter V as a commission for a children's book centre in Brighton. This is a Visiting Vulture, obviously.
That was the first job I painted in my lovely new studio space which is full of beautiful paints, materials and friendliness. Exhibitions and sales of real non-digital paintings to be announced shortly, watch this space.

Now I really need to tidy the house so that my lovely new housemate can move in tomorrow... I'm looking forward to living with her, she's a geography teacher and gives me merit stickers for tidying up. Heh.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

I'll do a Halloween workshop painting these soon at the Colour Makes People Happy shop.
This is the result of my first trial - I'm still figuring out the instructions.
To the left a black smudge I made on Simon's lovely clean wooden table in the process, and made much worse smudging it about. Arh.

...from Donna Wilson.
I've been coveting it for ages, and a few days ago I decided to order it.
It arrived in a beautiful parcel, and now I feel I have a new friend to play with.
Mog looks content when freshly washed... but always slightly miffed when I actually start putting food on her face. It's kind of magic.

Mog doesn't like being a clown.

Mog doesn't mind being a pirate,

Bpfffflpt.

Yes, Mog LIKES being a pirate.

Mog will put up with strawberries. And sugar. Today.

Also it came beautifully wrapped and with a compliment slip saying "You look nice", and I very much approved of that. Best purchase ever. Much recommended.

Also: we filmed and sound-recorded a reading of "There are no cats in this book", so that'll be online for your enjoyment soon.

I've had some tiring days.
Yesterday I did two events at the Starlit children's book festival in Hoxton, both first thing in the morning, on Tube Strike Day. It took me a long time to get there, and a longer time to get back, and in-between I drew pictures and read cat-books for and with about 60 very lovely children.
I hadn't really slept more than a couple of hours on account of stomach ache and insomnia - I spent about an hour reading about entropy and open systems on the sofa (normally soporific).
Thankfully I was fortified with hugs and food and eventually some proper sleep.

Today I decided that it's time to actually leave my lovely desk at my publisher's office as soon as possible instead of dribblingly slowly to move into a rather brilliant new space I recently found.
I spent a while shuffling about looking for a corner to hide and maybe have a cry, but then I had two strong cups of tea instead and decided it was all for the best really.
So I went and painted the first set of pictures in the new place. These are for an exhibition of monkey pictures I'll have there soon, and they will be for sale. Blue monkeys are a bit sad.
Yellow monkeys will be happy, and red monkeys... not quite sure yet. I need to buy some more fade resistant inks, actually.

Life is good, and definitely going somewhere, but (as I just told a friend) sometimes it feels a bit like cycling down the motorway with a family of monkeys telling yourself "It's ok because when we arrive we'll all have dinner together, that'll be lovely". Which is a very specific state of emotion that I had been completely unaware of until recently.
Mostly happy, except when too tired to move.

If you want to buy some monkey paintings, incidentally, watch this space, I'll announce the exhibition properly soon.